


Iron Sinews

by Draconic_Grace



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Porn, Bottom Tony Stark, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Character Study, Crack Treated Seriously, Dom/sub Undertones, Don't copy to another site, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Lovers, Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity Gems, Irontitan, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Panic Attacks, Past Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Porn, Porn with Feelings, Possessive Behavior, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Telepathy, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:53:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21677056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draconic_Grace/pseuds/Draconic_Grace
Summary: Upon achieving the Correction and riding high on his victory, Thanos considered the only one of Earth’s heroes to have successfully stood his own against him: Stark. "Tony Stark." The titan whispered his name, his mind restless, fixated on the iron warrior,  even as he gazed out on the sunset of his peaceful homestead. They were both cursed with knowledge, that Thanos knew, but now, were both also cursed with the loneliness of a newly purified universe, and with the blood on both of their hands.
Relationships: Tony Stark & Thanos, Tony Stark/Thanos
Comments: 30
Kudos: 240





	1. The Bargain

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my beta reader and writing pal Seenik, whose unwavering support made this story possible.
> 
> Disclaimer: All Marvel characters belong to Marvel, Disney, etc.
> 
> Spoiler Warning: Major spoilers for all of Avengers: Infinity War.

_Habit with its iron sinews, clasps us and leads us day by day._  
– Alphonse de Lamartine

Thanos sat down gingerly on the steps of his wooden cabin, smiling at the peaceful surroundings of forest and field. Despite the calm beauty of his gentle hideaway planet, however, the titan’s mind wandered, unsettled. Upon achieving the Correction and riding high on his victory, Thanos considered the only one of Earth’s heroes to have successfully stood his own against him: Stark. _Tony Stark._ The titan whispered his name, his mind restless, fixated on the iron warrior and the battle they had shared, even as he gazed out on the sunset of his quiet homestead. They were both cursed with knowledge, that Thanos knew, but now, were both also cursed with the loneliness of a newly purified universe, and with the blood on both of their hands.

Thanos wondered what had become of the man he had spared in exchange for the Time Stone, frail and injured as he had been back on the ruined planet that had once been the titan’s home. Amongst all of Earth’s greatest heroes, only Stark himself had managed to stand against him for more than a few moments. _Truly no small feat,_ Thanos mused, smiling slightly as he recalled Stark’s drive to win, the fire of blood rage in his eyes as they had clashed together in the dust. Merely from that fact alone, the man was indeed worthy of his continued interest. The mad titan looked at the ruined, cracked infinity gauntlet still donned on his hand; the infinity stones still shimmered with power, but were dimming by the moment. “One last trip,” Thanos said, sure of his choice this time as he spoke aloud. He and Tony Stark were not yet done.

***

Tony sighed as he turned off the recording on his ruined Mark 50 helmet, powering off the device for the last time. There was no way to recharge it, as it was, and even if there had been a spare power source on the ship, he and Nebula needed every spare ounce of power to continue charging the life support systems. He hoped his holographic message eventually reached Pepper and the others, on Earth, if they were even still alive.

 _Yes, they’re alive,_ he thought, berating himself for his momentary lack of hope. _Of course they are, they have to be._ He winced at the thought, and also at the cold metal as he reclined back against the ship’s bulkhead, the cold biting through his thin clothes. Tony tried not to think about how thin he knew he was getting, how weak he felt; they had been drifting for three weeks, and had nearly finished all the food stores available on the ship. The constant gnawing of hunger in his stomach had become a given. The luminous blue glow from a distant nebula bathed the interior of the starship in an eerie sheen, doing nothing to brighten the constant gloom of Tony Stark’s thoughts.

He had failed; they all had. This was just his one ultimate failure in his list of many failures in his life. He knew that, unlike those other, previous failures, for which he alone was responsible (including the deaths on his hands as the infamous “Merchant of Death” moniker he was still trying to live down), it was a shared failure. That even with the combined might of his friends and fellow superpowered heroes, it had just not been enough to stand against Thanos and the power of the Infinity Stones; but that thought was a dismal comfort while he and Nebula sat adrift in space in the late Peter Quill’s ship, slowly starving and awaiting an imminent death from the steadily failing life support systems.

At that thought, Tony put a hand gently on the bandage covering the wound on his side, grimacing as he remembered being skewered by Thanos with his own nano-blade--  
 _“You have my respect, Stark,” Thanos said, pushing Tony back as he gasped in pain, his labored breaths mixed with a mouthful of blood. The titan shoved Tony onto a nearby rock, cupping the side of his face in one massive purple hand in a twisted imitation of intimacy. Tony stared numbly in shock at Thanos, his entire body wracked with pain radiating from the wound in his side._

_Thanos leaned even closer to Tony, who fought a brief, traitorous urge to lean into the alien’s massive palm, to just rest, retreat from the pain he was feeling, from the battle, from the obvious might of the being before him. Thanos seemed to read every single emotion, every single thought, on Tony’s face, regarding him with a knowing gaze akin to pity._   
_“When I’m done, half of the universe will still be alive,” He declared, and took his hand away._   
_The pain in his side had Tony immobilized, and he could only stare as Thanos raised the gauntlet towards him._   
_“I hope they remember you,” he said, and Tony stared in hatred and resignation, waiting for the end--_

“Dammit,” Tony swore under his breath, leaning his head back hard against the cold metal of the bulkhead, the pain jarring him out of the memory. He had fought constantly the last three weeks against his mental urge to revisit that moment, reviewing it over and over in his mind for a way it could have gone differently, a way that didn’t end in his friends disintegrating into dust on that dying world, of _Peter Parker_ disintegrating in his arms...

Tony closed his eyes as tears once again welled up unbidden, unwanted. Doctor Stephen Strange had asked if Peter was his ward, and at the time Tony had disavowed it, thinking of nothing but keeping Peter safe, now that he had stowed away and was caught up in their shared battle. Now, he mourned Peter as the adopted son he wished he had, and once again Tony cursed Thanos, cursed the Infinity Stones, and even his ill-conceived, ongoing rift with Steve Rogers and the rest of the Avengers. Perhaps, if they hadn’t had such a gulf between them, had confronted Thanos with a united front, they may have prevailed. Thanos had achieved his goal, however, so that point was moot; obviously, he mused, Steve and the others on Earth had also failed to protect the rest of the Infinity Stones, and were likely nursing the same bitter defeat, the same dark grief.

Determined to distract himself from his musings, Tony stared out through the ship window at the universe. At the sight, he felt a sense of awe in his heart, despite everything. Space was beautiful in a way Tony had never previously considered. The blue glow of the nebula they drifted through was gentle, quiet (though in a way that Nebula, the former daughter of Thanos and current captain of their ship, was not), belying the shared trauma of losing half of its entire multitudes of inhabitants, on incalculable numbers of worlds. A fresh wave of grief for those he had lost, and the concurrent hatred for the being that had annihilated them, welled up inside Tony, and he banged his fist futilely against the bulkhead behind him.

As if sensing his hatred, Tony felt a slight change in the air pressure surrounding him, heralding the dull grey mist of a portal that had started forming in the far corner of the room, and he startled at the sight, his hand automatically reaching for the detachable arc reactor on his chest. His suit was nearly ruined, true, but it could still cover his body once activated, and would provide at least some protection, especially since his body had been greatly weakened in the weeks before. The portal swirled with energy, crackling with what appeared to be electrical power, what he now knew to be the undefinable power of one of the Infinity Stones (likely the Space Stone, from what he surmised of the destroyed Tesseract), and walking slowly out of the center of it, was none other than the object of Tony Stark’s hatred: Thanos, the Mad Titan.

On reflex, Tony scrambled back against the wall, as far as his weakened legs could carry him, one hand still on his arc reactor, his mind racing in panic. He took huge gulps of air, staring as Thanos calmly exited the portal and waltzed onto the ship like he owned the place. Clad in the same armored gold-and-leather tunic that he had worn when they had battled on Titan’s rocky surface, Thanos stopped and stood still as he cast about and found the smaller human huddled against the far wall, fixing his gaze on Tony, his eyes narrowed. Tony swallowed, breathing out shallowly through his nostrils as his thoughts raced. Should he attack Thanos with the remnants of his armor?

 _I can’t fight him right now,_ Tony thought, grimacing and cursing his newfound weakness. Back on Earth, he had always kept himself in top shape for whatever threats may have manifested against him (and, to a lesser extent, his allies), but that was before Thanos and his children wrought their havoc upon the universe in their pursuit of the Infinity Stones. The thrum of the Extremis nanobots still echoed in his veins, but he needed his entire suit, including the helmet, for him to truly take advantage of their added strength and stamina. Realizing he had no chance, Tony let his hand fall from the arc reactor to lie loosely at his side. Whatever Thanos wanted from him now, all he could do was go along with it until an opportunity presented itself.

The two men stared at each other, the small space of the ship’s bridge utterly silent, until Thanos spoke a single word:

“Stark.”

“Yeah yeah, we’ve been over this once before, Tall, Dark and Purple,” Tony bit out a caustic reply, unable to help himself. “Here to finish your handiwork?”

“I’m here for you, Stark,” Thanos replied, his tone even, betraying nothing of his intentions, not even annoyance at the previous comment.

“Here for me. What does that even mean, anyway?” Tony laughed and shook his head, feeling his nascent anger at the titan bubbling beneath his skin, threatening to erupt completely. “You have some fucking nerve to show up here now. You tried to kill me!”

By reflex, his hand went to his side, where Thanos had stabbed him, where he had clutched Thanos’s giant purple hand in shock as he had been guided backwards in the dirt, wracked in pain. Tony watched as Thanos’s gaze drifted to Tony’s side, before moving back up his body, taking in his less-than-ideal state of being. Tony fought the urge not to shudder in disgust as he felt the titan’s gaze slowly move over him, until he was once more staring him down, their gazes locked again.

“I was going to kill you, Stark, that is true,” Thanos said with a small sigh, as if testing his own patience with the irate human. “But I spared your life, instead, in exchange for the Time Stone. I won’t go back on my word now.”

“Great. Well, that’s good to know, Mister Purple People Eater, but like I said, we’ve been over all of this. Why are you here?” Tony leaned back against the wall in a mockery of relaxation, hoping he was betraying none of the fear and panic flooding his mind and body at being confronted with Thanos again. All he wanted to do was flee, to nurse his wounds and his grief alone, but there was nowhere to run.

“I told you, Stark, I’m here for you,” Thanos said, almost gently, like he was attempting to calm Tony’s racing heart, and the titan’s gaze continued to search his face like he was looking for something, though what that was, Tony couldn’t fathom.

“This is a new beginning, for both of us, Stark. A fresh start for the universe.” Thanos turned his gaze to the stars glittering just outside the ship window, as if considering their beauty. “I told you before, you’re not the only one cursed with knowledge. We’re both visionaries, as well as warriors. Freed by our ideals, but bound by our duty to be leaders, who dare to take the difficult steps others cannot. Our shared struggle connects us, binds us together.” Thanos turned back to him, pinning him with the latent fire in his gaze, and Tony found himself captivated, unable to look away from the conviction within those eyes.

“I need a man of vision,” Thanos continued. “Someone like you by my side, as we rebuild and move forward. You could be that man, Tony.”

“No, don’t call me that!” Tony replied harshly. “You don’t get to use my first name. That’s reserved for friends, and allies, and other people generally not responsible for universal genocide. I’m not going to be anything of yours, _Thanos,_ ” said Tony, hissing the titan’s name like it was a curse.

He expected the titan to glare in response to his abject hostility, or perhaps attack him, but instead Thanos closed his eyes as if savoring Tony’s words. The edges of his mouth were turned slightly upwards in the barest semblance of a smile, and he made a sound low in his throat, sounding somewhat like the satisfied purr of a giant extraterrestrial cat.

“That’s the first time you’ve said my name,” Thanos said, opening his eyes and grinning wider at Tony, who honestly had no idea what to think of that.

“I could get used to that, Stark,” Thanos said, and walked slightly closer to the corner where Tony huddled. Tony fought the urge to visibly cringe at the titan’s proximity to him; he briefly considered calling Nebula over the ship’s comms, but he didn’t want anyone else to die, least alone someone who had suffered so long under Thanos’s idea of “parental care”. Enough people had died, and Tony didn’t want any more blood on his hands, human, alien or otherwise. Thanos had said he was here for him; if he could protect everyone else through sacrificing himself, then so be it. Tony was used to self-sacrifice, it came to him easily; it was the easiest way for him to “balance his ledger”, as Natasha Romanoff had put it so succinctly years ago.

 _One Tony Stark for the universe,_ Tony thought, staring up at Thanos grimly. _A fair trade after everything._ If he could avoid anyone else dying by meeting the mad titan’s demands, he supposed it was a good enough endgame for now.

“You said you were here for me,” Tony said, and at Thanos’s answering nod, Tony sighed.

“I’ll do it. I’ll go with you,” He continued, trying not to shiver at the gleam of satisfaction, of hunger, in the taller alien’s eyes. “But on one condition.”

“You’re in no position to make demands of me,” Thanos said, but with a note of curiosity in his voice.

“You may as well kill me now, then, because we’re almost out of food anyway, and life support will cut off in a few days.” Tony shrugged and laughed at the absurdity of the situation. “I’ll go with you once you meet my conditions, or you just leave me here to die anyway. Take it or leave it, California Raisin.”

Thanos frowned at the unfamiliar term, crossing his arms with a look of impatience. He obviously wanted Tony to agree to whatever he wanted on his own volition, otherwise the titan would have easily throttled him in a manner of moments.

“What are your terms, Stark?” Thanos asked calmly.

“You’ll leave Nebula alone,” Tony said, forcing himself not to look away from the icy blue gaze fixed upon him. “You’ve done enough to her over the years. She deserves to live free of your influence, and she saved my life on Titan.”

He watched as Thanos clenched his jaw, perhaps in annoyance at being reminded by Tony of his other daughter’s torturous upbringing at his own hands, but the taller alien nodded in agreement.

“She will not be harmed,” Thanos replied, “I give you my word.”

“Good,” Tony said, figuring an immediate acquiescence from him was a good enough start. He decided to press his luck a bit further, having nothing left to lose. “You’ll also take her to Earth.”

Thanos tilted his head to the side, the unspoken question plain on his face, encouraging Tony to continue. Tony pointed at the battered gauntlet that Thanos still wore on his left hand. The infinity stones were darker than they had been in during their fight on Titan, but they still shimmered with power. Even having been used to annihilate half the universe, Tony doubted that would be enough to ever fully deplete their vast energies.

“You have the Infinity Stones,” Tony said. “You can alter space and reality and everything else. Just take the ship to Earth and leave it in orbit, so Nebula can land when I’m gone.”

“When you come with me,” Thanos corrected him, his voice a few octaves deeper, and Tony fought another shudder at the possessive lilt to his words.

It wasn’t that Tony was a stranger to being the object of male desire, nor did he reject it outright. The part of him that loathed himself tended to eagerly welcome adoration regardless of the source, and it generally had never failed to get him into bed (and also into trouble). In his playboy days, before Pepper had entered his life, he had shared his bed with his fair share of men as well as women, and his male lovers had tended to want to lead the encounter, some of them insisting on topping.

Tony, being himself, was up for anything; the “billionaire playboy philanthropist” moniker was not just for show, and he was happy to keep up appearances in regards to the “playboy” part of the description. Still, he had ultimately been in control then during his late-night trysts at his mansion or penthouse suite, in control of the way the night went, both in seduction and the morning after, and more often than not both his male and female lovers were happy to have him call a cab and leave his life without any further demands on his time.

Tony wasn’t used to being claimed, being ordered or controlled by others, whether they were human or alien. Thanos’s desire to claim him was evident, and Tony once again fought down a surge of latent anxiety at what that meant for him, and what it could mean for the universe. He had to admit to himself that it would at least keep Thanos busy, however, keep his murderous attention on him while the universe nursed its shared collective grief. Perhaps he could even buy Steve Rogers and the rest of the surviving Avengers on Earth time to rally, to find a way to undo what had been wrought upon them all. It was a fool’s hope, but that had been enough for Tony to get out of that cave in Afghanistan, to defeat his numerous enemies as Iron Man. Over the years, Tony had learned hope was as crucial to success as any other technology or superpower. Despite his weakened state and his imminent kidnapping by a universal maniac to parts unknown, he still clung to that foolish hope in his heart, keeping him warm under Thanos’s icy stare. Or maybe that was just the Extremis nanobots rushing through his veins. Either way, Tony was buoyed by the feeling.

“When I come with you,” Tony said in agreement, nodding and leaning his head back against the bulkhead from his perch on the floor. He watched Thanos lower his gaze from his face to the column of his throat, the pale skin exposed further as Tony leaned backwards, the thin tank top shirt shifting lower on his torso. He had lost more weight than he had expected in the past few weeks as the food stores on Quill’s ship were steadily depleted, and already his clothes didn’t fit quite right on his thinner frame. Judging by Thanos’s eager gaze, however, Tony figured it hadn’t dampened his desirability in the slightest. The titan’s sheer want for him emanated like an invisible current between them, and Tony was both afraid of and intrigued by it. It was his present curse and his only bargaining chip with the most powerful being in the universe.

“And you’ll leave Earth alone, for good this time,” Tony said, his voice unwavering as his fate as Thanos’s captive/pet/love slave/whatever became clear to him. He wasn’t afraid to make their bargain clear. “You got what you wanted, you have all the stones, and now you’ll have me. You don’t need to involve the Earth anymore in your grand scheme. Leave humanity and Earth out of your future plans, whatever they are.”

Thanos smiled at that. He slowly walked closer to Tony, taking his time, his eyes never leaving the smaller human’s own.

“A good, respectable bargain, Stark. You’re also an excellent businessman as well as a warrior. I’m not surprised in the slightest.”

Tony shrugged, feigning nonchalance as Thanos knelt down on one knee in front of him, bringing their gazes level to each other.

“I wouldn’t have become a billionaire if I wasn’t a decent businessman,” he said wryly, but he couldn’t hide his flinch as Thanos reached up and cupped his cheek in one massive purple hand. With his other hand, still clad in the infinity gauntlet, Thanos rested his palm over Tony’s heart, the span of his hand covering the entirety of the human’s torso. Thanos tightened his hand around Tony and squeezed lightly, the metal gauntlet biting through Tony’s thin clothing, and through that same armor he could feel a thrum of strange vibration, like the echo of an electric current. Tony realized with a gasp that it was the power of infinity stones that he was feeling, through the gauntlet, and even through Thanos’s hand, through his fingertips that were exposed by the ends of the gauntlets and curving about Tony’s middle.

“You can feel them, the power of the stones,” Thanos said, observing Tony’s face carefully, and Tony nodded, his beard tickling as it brushed against Thanos’s palm still against his cheek.

“I thought a human couldn’t wield them without dying,” Tony said, reluctant to move at all while Thanos touched him, lest he possibly earn the titan’s ire.

“No ordinary mortal can,” Thanos replied, “But the stones themselves have a kind of sentience. They can sense whether someone is worthy of wielding them, and make that person sense them in turn.”

“The--I’m sorry, what? You said the stones are alive?”

“They are not truly alive, Stark, but they were part of the forces that led to the universe’s creation. As such, they possess their own sort of life force, a kind of limited awareness.”

Thanos splayed his armored hand flat against Tony’s chest, and Tony could see the infinity stones flare, one by one, in a rainbow flash of color, as if in response to the titan’s words, and along with their shimmering power, Tony could feel through the gauntlet a dim sense of _otherness,_ a sleeping alien intelligence, regarding him curiously. It was utterly alien, the collected power of the infinity stones working as one, nearly incomprehensible even for Tony’s admittedly brilliant mind.

“When I claimed the stones, one by one, their power rushed through me, merged with me,” Thanos said. “And through them now, I can feel their regard for you. So similar in my own regard for you, the one who destroyed my Chitauri fleet, who stood his own against me in battle when all others fell. The man who has everything, who won’t hesitate to sacrifice his life for others, as a habit, because he can’t forget the blood on his own hands.”

Tony stared, forced himself not to look away from the alien as he considered the titan’s words. He swallowed, the sound too loud in the otherwise quiet room. He could feel Thanos’s body heat, only mere inches between them, and the massive palms on his face and torso felt like a flame, burning his skin.

“Are you done psychoanalyzing me, or is there more?” Tony asked in a low voice, nearly a whisper. Thanos chuckled, and Tony could feel the vibration of his laughter, and it made a rush of desire pool low in his gut. He mentally cursed his body’s reaction to Thanos’s closeness, chalked it up to the loneliness of drifting through space, of missing Pepper’s sure presence and her lips on his, of being touch starved; but he also knew that he craved adoration from powerful people. It’s why he had initially fallen for Steve, why Steve’s betrayal had hurt as much as it did. It’s why he loved Pepper’s quiet strength, her sharp wit grounding his own wild habits, her innate passion a match to his own. It’s why he found Thanos’s own absolute conviction as fascinating as it was infuriating, why being captive in the titan’s grasp made him feel an equal combination of exhilarated and terrified.

As if sensing Tony’s slowly awakening desire, Thanos smiled and gently pressed his armored palm against the human’ chest again, the infinity stones shimmering once more, almost playfully, and Tony felt their otherworldly awareness reaching out to his mind:  
 _How wonderful was Tony, how worthy! How noble, how generous, how passionate!_

“I’m not,” Tony whispered, overwhelmed, his eyes suddenly filling with tears. “The stones lie. I’m a killer, a hero that failed, that let everyone down. I made my fortune making weapons to kill other human beings, and then I became a hero by killing even more people. The people I love turned against me, and the more I tried to save, the more lost their lives.”

Thanos gently wiped tears from the human’s cheek, finding Tony’s raw emotion more endearing than he could say.

“What did they call you, Stark?” Thanos asked in a low voice. The Mind Stone had already granted him a glimpse inside Tony Stark’s mind, allowing him to view the man’s memories in an instant, but he wanted Tony to admit it himself, wanted to hear the admission from his own lips. Thanos wanted Tony to see how similar they both were to each other.

Tony closed his eyes.

“‘The Merchant of Death,’” he said, and sagged against the bulkhead, as if those words cost him much of the strength he had left after suffering starvation. Thanos stroked the human’s cheek in an attempt to soothe him, lessening his hold around the human’s torso, but not taking his hand away. Now that Thanos was touching Tony, he was reluctant to stop, greedy for whatever contact he could get. The moniker was obviously a source of shame for Tony, but Thanos found it poignant, another facet of the fascinating mortal jewel that was Tony Stark.

“That label doesn’t limit your worth in the slightest, Stark,” Said Thanos. “Nor does it make you any less a hero. Destruction breeds creation, and your becoming a warrior was borne out of the destruction of weaker beings. Your willingness to atone for those deaths, to fight when you know you’ve already lost, just makes you even more worthy of the infinity stones’ respect. Of my respect. If you weren’t human, you might be even worthier to wield them than I.”

Tony opened his eyes and stared at Thanos, his eyes red from crying, looking more haunted and defeated than Thanos had ever seen him, a pale imitation of the defiant warrior that had fought him to the edge of death and defeat.

“You are a hero, Stark,” Thanos said. “A hero of Earth. Giving to a fault, so much so that you sacrifice yourself routinely, for those that don’t deserve you. I’ll accept your bargain, you for the Earth, because it’s you I came back for anyway. I’ll show you how worthy you are of my regard.”

Thanos stood then, finally, reluctantly pulling away from the human. He raised the infinity gauntlet, the blue space stone flashing in the dimness of the room, and Tony felt a tug on his body, a rush of air and pressure, then suddenly he had to shield his eyes from a brightness shining in through the window of the ship. He pulled his hand away from his face slowly, then gasped as he glimpsed the bright blue of Earth through the window. Tears came to his eyes again, unbidden, and he let them fall. So close to home, yet the price he was paying to see it again was to leave it behind with Thanos. He barely had time to look longingly at his home planet before Nebula’s voice filled the air over the ship’s coms.

“Stark, are you there?! What’s going on?!” Nebula called, her voice tinged with shock and worry.

“Nebula, this is Earth,” Tony called back calmly. “I asked him to take us here. Don’t come to the bridge, just stay where you are.”

“Thanos is there?” Nebula didn’t bother to hide her anger and hatred from her voice. She hated Thanos more than Tony, more than possibly anyone else. Tony couldn’t blame her, after everything her adopted father had done to her. “I’m coming, stay put.”

“Don’t, dammit, Nebula, please! Don’t come here!” Tony cried in frustration, and on the other line Nebula stayed silent. He wanted to protect her from her father’s presence; it was the least he could do after she had saved both their lives by piloting the ship away from Titan. Thanos stared at Tony, saying nothing, for which Tony was grateful. For a being who seemed to love the sound of his own voice, he knew when quiet served his agenda more than speaking, something Tony had never quite gotten the hang of.

“Nebula, I’m going with him, so he’ll leave Earth alone. I need you to find my friends, what’s left of them,” Tony continued. “They’re a group called the Avengers, led by a human named Steve Rogers, also called Captain America, in the United States on a continent called North America. You can land somewhere isolated, find food and supplies. It’s not much, but better than drifting in space. Take a weapon, humans can be hostile to offworlders. Apologies in advance for that.”

“Stark…” Nebula said over the coms, and her voice was raw, like she was crying. “Don’t let him get inside your head, don’t let him change you. He’ll say he loves you, then he’ll break you. Don’t let him.”

Tony swallowed, and watched Thanos tighten his jaw, his eyes flashing with anger, but he made no motion to deny his daughter’s words.

“I won’t, Nebula,” Tony said. “And I won’t forget you. Please find the Avengers and take care of yourself.”

“I will, Tony,” Nebula said, and there was a brief motion of static as the coms went silent once more. Tony sighed and turned back to the window of the bridge, where the brilliant blue of planet Earth sat, more precious and dear to him than any of the Infinity Stones. He drank in the sight of home, wondering if Pepper or Steve could feel him floating in orbit. Somehow, he knew they were alive, beyond mere hope there was a sure instinct that told him they yet lived. He clenched his fists as he felt Thanos lay a hand on his shoulder and grasp him slightly.

“I’m ready,” Tony said, not turning away from the sight of Earth just before him, and his vision was replaced with the grey mist of a portal swirling about. He felt the twisting tug of gravity, felt suspended briefly in the air as he moved through an Infinity Stone-created pocket of space, before the sting of cold nighttime air on some distant planet rushed over him, the shock of it, and the pull of slightly heavier gravity made him dizzy. Combined with his weakened body and lack of food, Tony felt his eyes roll back into his head as he pitched forward, his vision darkening. He felt strong hands close securely around him before losing consciousness.


	2. The Garden

Tony jolted awake with a start. He was warmer than he remembered being in weeks, expecting the cold of Quill’s ship, the slightly metallic tang of recycled air as he and Nebula drifted aimlessly through space. Blinking back sleep that he hadn’t known he needed, he looked down to find himself wrapped up in a thin wool-like blanket, laid out on a wooden floor. Taking a deep breath, Tony felt himself relax as the fresh air of a nearby forest hit his nostrils. It smelled almost like the Earth, reminding him of home. At that thought, everything that had happened suddenly came rushing back to him: Thanos appearing to him on the ship, Tony agreeing to go with Thanos in exchange for taking Nebula home. Tony exchanging himself--sacrificing himself--for the Earth, and all its inhabitants therein. A deal made with a giant, purple alien Devil, the price being his body and mind (and perhaps his soul, since there was an Infinity Stone for that, too). 

The adrenaline spike the memories brought Tony made him want to leap up and run, but he simply took a deep breath and stood on shaky legs. He wasn’t used to being planetside yet, and he noted the gravity appeared to be slightly stronger on this planet, wherever it was. Combined with the hunger he had suffered for several weeks in space, Tony had to take it easy with himself, and that he wasn’t going anywhere fast. He clutched the blanket tighter about himself once he stood, noting he was still clad in the same clothes he had worn on the ship, thin tank top and all. Not that he had thought Thanos would have stripped him completely, or even at all, despite the titan’s interest in Tony, but then again this was Thanos, the same alien demagogue that thought universal genocide was the best possible choice to conserving universal resources. If he had wanted Tony naked and at his mercy, he would have done so without hesitation. 

Remembering Thanos’s gentle caress on his cheek, and the insistent press of his entire infinity gauntlet-clad palm against his chest, during their shared moment on the ship made Tony’s face heat up as he recalled the desire the touch had reluctantly sparked in him. It was completely possible, and likely inevitable, that Thanos would have Tony naked and at his mercy in the near future. He tried to see it as just another late-night tryst, on an alien planet instead of his penthouse suite, tried to imagine Thanos as just another over-eager male excited to get Iron Man into bed, but then he remembered Thanos roaring in rage as he disintegrated one of Titan’s moons, raining meteorites upon Tony, the Mark 50 suit being the only thing that had kept him alive from that particular onslaught. This wasn’t simply another tryst with a nameless lover that he could forget in the morning. This was the Mad Titan. Tony shivered. 

_ This was my choice, _ Tony thought as he reminded himself he had made this decision on his own.  _ He could have made me come with him by force, but I agreed to it. Me for the Earth, and I delivered.  _ The fact that he remained clothed, showed that Thanos at least had the decency to keep his dignity relatively intact, as well as to see to his comforts while captive. 

He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders as he shuffled forward, looking about as he did so. He appeared to be in some sort of open hut or cabin, constructed out of immense tree logs, obviously native to this planet. Two circular lanterns hovered above the floor, seemingly under their own power, casting a gentle orange light upon the inside of the cabin. Portions of the roof had a thatched covering, and beyond the wooden floor interior was a large doorway. 

As Tony neared the doorway, he cautiously stepped out onto a wide wooden porch, stunned at the view before him, where a gentle slope led into distant terraced fields and forests, and further still were a chain of towering mountains, the heights of which could rival even the Himalayas of Earth, underneath a wide nighttime sky filled with countless stars. Tony noted the large moon looming in the sky, and was grateful to be planetside once again, even if it wasn’t Earth. Despite the majesty of space, it was cold, barren, and dangerous; the feel of gravity, the smell of grass and growing things, was comforting after weeks he had spent adrift. 

Despite the pleasure of fresh air, however, he was also cold, clad as he was in simple clothing, and pulled the thin blanket tighter around his shoulders. It appeared to be summer here, judging by the lushness of the trees and other vegetation he could see nearby, but Tony knew nothing was as it first appeared. For all he knew, Thanos had terraformed this planet himself (perhaps after destroying its native inhabitants, if there were any). He wouldn’t put anything past the titan, at this point, but he also realized he needed Thanos in order to at least survive on this planet. He didn’t have anything, any tools or weapons, besides the ruins of his suit, and he tapped the detachable arc reactor on his chest in reflex, sighing in relief as he realized it was still there. 

“Ah, you’re finally awake,” Thanos said, and Tony startled as the alien in question rounded the corner of the hut, carrying a small wooden box. Thanos placed the box onto the shorter step of the porch, then motioned to Tony, gesturing at the main step. 

“Please, sit,” Thanos asked, and Tony nodded, his throat tight with anxiety, saying nothing, but he obeyed Thanos’s words, sitting down gently on the step. Thanos smiled at him and followed suit, sitting his great bulk down onto the porch with a sigh, the wood groaning at the sheer mass of the titan’s frame. 

“I thought you might be hungry after the trip here, so I dug out this stove out of a storage shack I have nearby,” said Thanos, removing a small metal circle and a pot filled with a fragrant, green liquid, and setting them both on the lower step in front of them. What color the liquid was, exactly, or what it contained, was hard for Tony to see under the sparse lighting from the one floating lamp nearby. It was enough for him to hope it wasn’t poisonous, though if he was being honest with himself, his personal paranoia was getting to be exhausting. He busied himself instead with watching Thanos fasten the small stove together, watching those huge purple hands fiddle with the small buttons on the base of the metal circle, and Tony startled a bit as a small blue flame suddenly jumped to life in the center, despite having no obvious fuel source. 

Tony whistled in appreciation as Thanos placed the pot of liquid on the flame to cook. 

“That stove? That is amazing,” Tony said, his earnest excitement at seeing new technology coming to the forefront. The liquid was beginning to bubble in only a few seconds, and his mind was filled with possibilities for that kind of technology. 

“That would sell like hotcakes back on Earth,” Tony continued, his mind stirred by something to contemplate other than death, destruction and kidnapping. “I’d make a new research and development division in my company, just based on the lightweight fuel source alone. Stocks would go through the roof, the board of directors may not hate me anymore. All from that little stove you have right there.” He pointed to the stove, as if it contained all the power of the universe, instead of the infinity gauntlet that Tony noted was still on Thanos’s left hand. Thanos met his eyes and smiled softly, enjoying the human’s enthusiasm. 

“Your insightfulness knows no bounds, Stark,” Thanos said, not looking away from Tony’s face for even a moment, and once Tony tore his gaze from the little stove and looked up at Thanos, he felt his face heat up at the titan’s continued scrutiny. He hoped Thanos couldn’t see the light blush dusting his cheeks under the cover of darkness, but who knew how good a titan’s night vision was. He shrugged, looking at the stove again, willing Thanos to stop staring at him like he wanted to take Tony apart.

“It’s just thoughts,” he said, playing off his earlier diatribe. “I love technology, it’s part of who I am.”

“It’s not just mere thoughts, Stark,” Thanos said, and Tony let out a quiet sigh of relief as he turned his attention to the contents of the cook pot, fishing a ladle from the box beside them and beginning to stir the liquid therein. Tony smelled something similar to Far Eastern spices, cumin and nutmeg, and there was something savory too, like mushrooms or onions. His stomach gnawed in hunger, reminding him he’d had nothing to eat for weeks besides freeze-dried ration bars from a starship, and he gripped his middle absently underneath the woolen blanket. 

“You have a mind for details, for technical prowess, a mastery of machines,” Thanos continued as he stirred the pot of exotic alien soup, “Combined with the instinct of a warrior. A formidable combination.”

“Well, I’d hope so,” Tony replied. “I’m an engineer first, fighter second. Math and machines always made sense to me, and it’s natural for me to work with metal. I built all my suits one by one. Before that I built weapons, but--” His chest tightened, and he shrugged, unwilling to continue. 

Thankfully, Thanos didn’t inquire further, his gaze on the soup, and he left the ladle in the pot as he fished out two deep mugs with handles, handing one to Tony, who took it without comment. Running his hands over the mug, he noted it was ceramic, with a simple clear glaze. Maybe life was more similar out on other planets than humans had ever seriously considered, he surmised; even aliens needed stoves and ceramic cups and soup. Thanos scooped a generous portion of soup into Tony’s mug, Tony nodding his thanks, before serving himself. Tony watched the steam rise from the warm concoction, the scent intriguing to his nostrils. After watching Thanos take a sip, he raised his own mug towards his lips.

_ What the hell, _ He thought.  _ Can’t be any worse than more frozen ration bars _ . With that thought, he took a small sip, and fought back a moan at the savory-sweet taste flooding his palate. He took another, larger sip; it was a thicker broth than he expected, almost like a spicy mushroom stew or thinner beef stroganoff, and the taste was heavenly. Tony wolfed down the rest of the broth eagerly, momentarily forgetting his surroundings as he sated his weeks-long hunger, missing the look of satisfaction on Thanos’s face as he watched the human eat. 

Thanos forced himself to look away from Tony, knowing the human was self-conscious about the attention he was showing towards him, and drank from his own cup, downing his broth in one gulp before placing it onto the ground besides the stove. He had made this soup manly for Tony, understanding the human had been malnourished in his time aboard Quill’s ship; his own hunger was barely present, and he had eaten mainly to avoid feeling hungry later, but seeing Tony eat food he had prepared for him, seeing him outright enjoy something Thanos had done for him directly, gave Thanos a thrill of primal satisfaction, a feeling he hoped to continue later if the human was amenable. Hiding a grin, Thanos reached down and switched the stove off, knowing the soup would stay warm for a while longer. 

“You should pace yourself with eating, Stark,” Thanos suggested. “It’s been a long time since you ate regularly. I would hate for you to get sick by overeating too soon, before you adjust.”

Tony rolled his eyes, shaking his head slightly at the admonishment, but placed his empty cup next to the stove besides Thanos’s, anyway.

“Thanks,  _ Doctor  _ Thanos,” Tony muttered. “Despite having decided to kill me before you changed your mind on a dime, your concern for my wellbeing is appreciated.”

Thanos sighed patiently, as if having expected this behavior.

“You’re my guest, Stark,” Thanos said, resting his hands over his knees, staring at Tony. “While you’re here, I want you to be as comfortable as possible.”

“Oh, I’m your ‘guest’ now?” Tony asked, his earlier anger flooding into his words. “I thought I was more like your war prize. Isn’t that what I am to you? You claimed me for yourself, came back for me, even after getting everything you want--”

“You are my guest, yes,” Thanos replied tersely in interruption. “And you decided to come with me, we agreed on this before. You, in exchange for me leaving Nebula and the Earth alone. Or would you rather renege on your part of that bargain?”

Tony swallowed, knowing he had lost the argument, staring at Thanos with anger, but he shook his head, surrendering, looking down at his feet. He had nothing else to bargain with, except himself, and he had no wish for Thanos to set foot on Earth again.

“Stark,” Thanos said, and Tony wanted to ignore it, wanted to just stare at the ground of this unknown planet until his eyes burned a hole clean through. 

“Stark, look at me,” Thanos said, an order more than a request, and Tony did so, looked into the titan’s ice-blue gaze, feeling like he could fall into his eyes and drown, like the alien could see right through him. With the power of the infinity stones, he doubted there was anything that he could hide. All his normal boundaries back on Earth--the social stratification of his immense wealth, his engagement to Pepper and subsequent avoidance of dalliances with others, using his sarcasm and wit to cover up and dismiss things he didn’t want to talk about--none of that applied here on this planet, alone with Thanos. 

“Stark, make no mistake: I  _ do _ want you. I won’t lie to you about that,” Thanos said, his voice a few octaves deeper, and Tony fought the urge to shudder as he was pinned under Thanos’s powerful gaze. Thanos reached over, touched the ends of his fingertips to Tony’s chin, stroking the ends of his beard gently, sending a trickle of warmth through Tony despite the chill of the night air. 

“But,” Thanos continued, “I would rather you want that, as well. Think what you will of me, as a conqueror, a killer. I am those things, true, and a general besides. I’ve commanded armies all throughout the universe, subdued entire planets and civilizations. None of those things, I will deny, but I’m no rapist. I’ve never had to resort to such criminal acts to slake my own lust, not when hundreds of potential lovers lined up to vie and compete for my attentions. And I took pains to personally eliminate such vile behavior from my armies, where possible.” 

He took his hand away then from Tony’s chin, sitting down to consider him in silence, and Tony sat still, unsure how to react. It was easy to forget how powerful Thanos was, while he was chatting idly and serving him soup like a guest, like a friend in his home. That he was an accomplished war general in his own right, even after claiming the infinity stones. How old was Thanos, anyway? Tony had no idea how old the titan was, but he suddenly realized that Thanos could easily be hundreds of years old.

“Well, that’s--that’s good to hear, I guess,” Tony replied with a nervous laugh. “Very principled, you’re on a good start towards a kind-of normal view of morality. Still have a ways to go, I think, but, progress is progress.” 

Thanos laughed softly at the human’s sarcasm, understanding that he was creating a false barrier between them with his words in order to avoid discomfort. His earlier glimpse inside Stark’s mind, and subsequent viewing of his memories, had revealed as much to him. The human felt deeply, and had also been hurt deeply in his life by those who had claimed to care for him, emotional scars to back up the physical ones on his body that he had earned in battle. Thanos knew he would acknowledge his feelings on his own, if he gave the human time. Soon enough, he watched the human sigh in frustration, or perhaps resignation, as he looked up again. 

“What if... What if I don’t want you back?” Tony asked hesitantly, reluctantly looking at Thanos again, his body tense. Thanos smirked at him. 

“I don’t think that’s true, Stark,” said Thanos, and Tony felt a small thrill rush through him. He looked away, at the ground, unwilling to face his unwitting, traitorous desire for his keeper, his captor.

“I’m engaged,” he choked out, feeling suddenly overwhelmed as he contemplated Pepper’s fate. Feeling desire for Thanos twisting deeper, as he considered his fiance’s face, the memory of her touch on his body, made him feel like the worst sort of person. He knew that she understood the kind of sacrifices he had to routinely make as Iron Man and one of Earth’s preeminent heroes; and he also knew she knew about his earlier playboy days (what Pepper had collectively termed his “slut years”, a term he had never denied and actually took pride in, to a point). Would she understand this choice he was making, though? More importantly, would she forgive this particular sacrifice, offering himself to an alien emperor-king on a distant planet? 

Never mind she had insisted he come back home after boarding Thanos’s ship to save Doctor Stephen Strange, that was just Pepper being Pepper, trying to protect him from himself, something she had failed to do at that moment, but did often enough all the same, enough that not to marry her made no sense to Tony, considering that she was one of the only people in the known universe to put up with his many personal flaws and love him anyway. Not to mention her eclectic tastes in the bedroom, though Tony desperately tried to will that thought away from his conscious mind. He didn’t even know if Pepper was still alive, and the thought brought back waves of anger and helplessness.

“Your chosen is alive, Stark,” Thanos said, and Tony looked up quickly, scanning the titan’s face for signs of lying. In response, Thanos held up the gauntlet, and the crimson reality stone shimmered once, before erupting in a flood of color floating before him, like a television screen made of ethereal vapor. 

Tony stood up in shock as he saw a familiar blonde-haired figure appear before him within the trails of red vapor. It was Pepper Potts, sure enough, wearing jeans and a plain sweatshirt, walking through his mansion lab where the rest of his Mark 40 suits and the Mark 50 prototypes were kept. Tony felt a pang in his heart at the dejected look on Pepper’s face, his soul aching as he watched his fiance run a hand down the last Mark 50 prototype suit he had created, which he had worn months before donning the latest version (since ruined in battle on Titan). The fact that she wasn’t wearing one of her trademark power suits, donned before every important business meeting and tussle with Stark Industries’ Board of Directors, indicated how depressed she really was over Tony’s absence. It was something only Tony would have known, so carefully did she hide her true emotions, and his heart ached anew at being away from her. He reached out a hand cautiously towards Pepper’s face in the vapor, running his hand through it, and it evaporated through his fingers, feeling like a cool mist. 

_ I’m alive, Pep _ , Tony thought, willing her to feel him, to hear him calling her in his mind, across countless lightyears. Pepper just stood staring at the Mark 50 suit, though, with the same pained expression, and Tony decided he had seen enough. He turned to Thanos, a serious look on his face.

“Is this real?” he asked. “She’s really there, on Earth, alive?”

“It is real, Stark,” Thanos replied calmly, as if expecting this very reaction from the human. “And yes, she is alive, back on your home planet. I feel her soul and mind, as well, through the infinity stones. If she had perished before, I would also be able to feel her absence through my link with the stones.” He made a short gesture with the infinity gauntlet, and the vapor screen holding Pepper Potts’ image shimmered away. 

Tony stared at the titan, his eyebrows pinched together, deep in thought.

“I want to talk to her,” he said after a moment, scanning Thanos for a reaction. Thanos tilted his head in an unspoken question.

“I want to believe you,” Tony said. “And I’m so glad you showed her to me. But she’s my fiance. You have all that power, you can connect us together somehow, connect our minds. When the stones reached out to me on the ship, connected to my mind, you did that, somehow, you connected us both together. So I know you could connect me and Pepper together, too, with the mind stone.” 

Tony choked down disgust at the knowledge that Vision was dead as a result of Thanos even possessing the Mind Stone, deliberately quashing the ensuing mental image of the noble mechanical being dying at Thanos’s hands. He considered it a cold comfort that Vision would likely consider Tony’s choice to distract Thanos away from Earth an effective one, having always understood Tony’s point of view and backed him up as a friend and fellow comrade-in-arms. 

He shook his head briefly in frustration, forcing himself to compartmentalize his thoughts. Thinking of those he had lost--those the universe had lost--wouldn’t do anything now, wouldn’t bring them back. 

He looked back up at Thanos, who was staring at him impassively, his blue gaze betraying nothing. Tony thought for a moment that maybe asking even this was too much, that maybe he had finally overstepped his bounds of what Thanos would allow. He had no idea what Thanos was thinking, and once again, Tony felt hatred for him, at Thanos’s power, his seeming invincibility, his eyes like a blank slate and his sheer inscrutability. For an engineer and a genius who prided himself on being able to understand nearly anything, it grated at him to have to confront a being who revealed nothing, no weakness he could exploit to win, save Thanos’s own unabashed obsession with Tony himself. 

Tony let his rage and anger emanate from him like one of the repulsor blasts from his Mark 50 suit. He stared back at Thanos, twin waves of anger and anxiety roiling through his body, refusing to look away from the alien’s blue eyes. How could someone so evil have such beautiful eyes, anyway? Tony fought back a grimace at the realization that Thanos’s eyes reminded him of Steve’s own, though Steve’s were a darker blue, like a cerulean sea, while Thanos’s irises were like a frigid snowscape, devoid of all life. Fitting, considering what he had chosen to do to the universe. Tony fished for something to say, something that would convey what he wanted, without angering the Mad Titan enough to endanger himself, but Thanos ended up beating him to it, after all.

“Come here, Stark,” Thanos said, and Tony flinched as the words filled the momentary silence that had grown between them. 

“Wh-what?” Tony asked stupidly, cringing at his shocked tone. What was he, now, a smitten schoolboy? Thanos waved his non-gloved hand at Tony, beckoning him to step closer. Tony swallowed, but stepped closer a cautious few steps, until there was a foot or two of space between them. Thanos shook his head, slowly, the corners of his mouth turned upwards slightly, as if enjoying a private joke. 

“A bit closer, please, Stark,” said Thanos, his voice rumbling in that pleasant way that had sent thrills of excitement through Tony back on the ship. Tony reluctantly stepped closer, until he was nearly standing between Thanos’s legs where the titan still sat crouched on the lower step of his cabin. 

He clenched his fists to his sides as he fought his conflicting emotions, hatred on one side, shameful growing arousal on the other. He could feel Thanos’s body heat from where he stood, smell the tang of sweat on the alien’s skin in the summer night air, a dusky and salty-sweet and all male scent, and with it Tony traced the details of Thanos’s body, admiring the alienness of his strange, purple skin, his exotic leather and metal armor, and recalling the sure knowledge of the titan’s vicious, absolute strength rippling beneath muscled violet flesh. 

Tony stared at the metal armor covering Thanos’s biceps, his mind racing. Maybe that’s what Thanos had meant, before, back on the ship, when he had tried to convey how similar they were. They weren’t, of course, but looking at Thanos’s armor covering his chiseled muscles, Tony could see it now, kind of. They were both warriors, both killers, always wearing metal, of different types, but the function was the same: keep them safe so they could fight, could kill. Tony could tell himself (did tell himself frequently) that he fought to protect the Earth, but he also killed to protect it, to avenge it. How many people had he killed, over the years? Did covering himself with his suit, being Iron Man, having Extremis rush through his blood, absolve him from his many sins? Thanos would say it didn’t. Pepper would scoff at him, remind him that what Thanos had told him was the words of a madman. 

And yet, here he was, with said madman, in order to protect the Earth once again, a faustian bargain made without his suit on. Tony Stark had made the choice to come to this planet with Thanos, not Iron Man, so that no one else had to die, so that neither he nor Thanos had to kill again, at least for now. Tony Stark was the one whose heart was racing at his closeness to Thanos, and he could no longer deny it. 

Tony felt both sick and exhilarated. Thanos was smiling at him, now, a real smile, if only slight, but Tony could feel that smile rush through him like a jolt of electricity. He wondered if Thanos knew he was turned on, wondered if he knew how terrified he was, how vulnerable. Not just physically; all of Tony’s emotional walls were down, and he was exhausted. He had had his fill of death, of fighting, even resting. He only wanted to feel alive again. If he had been back on Earth, he would be drinking away his grief, be halfway through a bottle of the most expensive scotch in the compound, right after fucking Pepper senseless as many times as he could. He wondered if Thanos was using the Mind Stone on him, but immediately doubted it; he had all his faculties intact, he could tell.

“You’re thinking too much, Stark,” Thanos said, and Tony blew out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Tony flinched as Thanos reached up and cupped both sides of his face, and Tony screwed his eyes shut as those huge hands encompassed the entire span of his head between them. 

_ This is it, _ Tony thought,  _ he’s going to kill me now. He’s had enough and he’s going to-- _

That thought was interrupted as he felt the press of warm, chapped lips against his own, the sheer warmth of them jolting through Tony’s core, making him groan as pure  _ want _ pooled hot in his groin. The lips touching his were chaste, undemanding, even as the heat of that contact sent promises of more rushing through him. Beyond that feeling, something else rushed through his body and mind, an undercurrent of pure power, tinged golden and bright like an inner sun, and Tony felt his mind rush on that golden current, being pulled inexorably somewhere else, before alighting upon a familiar presence. 

“...Tony?” He felt her voice, felt the cautious, awed hope, rather than heard it, but the rush of joy and relief that encompassed his entire being was enough for him.

_ Pep! _ He called out, willing her to hear him.  _ Pepper, I’m here, I’m alive!  _

“Tony! Oh, God, Tony…!” Pepper began to cry then, and Tony anxiously reached out with his mind, sending her waves of his love for her, hoping to soothe her. 

_ Pep, I’m so sorry for leaving, but I had to. We both know that. _

“Where are you, Tony?” Pepper asked. “How are you--how are you talking to me, inside my head?”

_ I was in space, Pepper, and I fought Thanos. We lost, though everyone knows that by now _ . He knew he was talking--or thinking--too fast, but he had no idea how much longer their connection would last. 

_ I’m with him, now, Pep, on a far-away planet. I’m trying to give you all time. Please find Steve Rogers and the others, let them know where I am. _

“I will, we’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He could hear her sniffle, wishing he could wipe away her tears. “I never gave up on you, Tony. I knew you had to be alive!”

_ I know, Pep _ , Tony thought.  _ I love you. No matter what happens, I’ll be thinking of you. It’s always you.  _

“I know Tony,” Pepper said, sounding more sure now. “I love you too.”

Tony wanted to say more, but he could feel their connection weakening, felt that golden current return as it bore his mind back to where he had started, and Tony jolted backwards, breaking the kiss as he tore himself away from Thanos’s lips. He felt his cheeks flame as a traitorous blush covered his entire face. For his part, Thanos looked smug, grinning unabashedly at the man standing a few feet away from him with his face flushed and a hard-on tenting the front of his pants. 

“What the fuck, Thanos?” Tony groused, clutching hands around his middle. He wasn’t even going to bother to try hiding his erection at this point; he was still reeling from his mind being transferred across light-years to Pepper’s back on Earth, courtesy of the Mind Stone. 

“I gave you what you wanted, Stark,” Thanos replied coolly, unconcerned at Tony’s nonplussed attitude. “Connecting your mind to someone else’s is easiest through personal skin contact between us, since you can’t touch the Mind Stone yourself.” He tilted his head, looking Tony up and down, his gaze lingering on the man’s groin, before moving back up to his face. 

“I hope you’re reassured at your beloved’s continued survival.”

“I’m not thanking you,” Tony replied acidly. “You did me a favor, but that doesn’t make up for what you did, what you’ve done.”

“I never claimed it would,” Thanos said evenly with a shrug. “I just wanted to give you what you asked for.”

“Well, maybe I should have asked you to  _ not kill half the entire universe _ ! Ever think about that, Jolly Purple Giant?! I wouldn’t have had to be concerned about my fiance’s possible death, if you had stuck to marauding and killing local planets out in the Bumfuck Galaxy,  _ away from Earth! _ ” 

Tony knew he was going too far, throwing up his hands to the sky, freaking out in front of the most powerful man in the universe, but he couldn’t stop himself. Restraint was not one of his strong suits. He felt his mouth open, felt his earlier rage pour out, like the use of the Mind Stone had ripped down the last of his mental walls, and the words emerged like a flood.

“Giving me what I want, this is about what  _ you want! _ Nothing is enough for you, Thanos! You had armies, and suitors, and power, and it’s never enough! You always want what you can’t have, and what you do cherish, you sacrifice it all for more.” 

Thanos stared at him, his face grimacing in anger, but otherwise said nothing, allowing the human to vent his rage. Tony panted, standing before him, and the rage made him feel immune to the fear he had otherwise been feeling at the titan’s proximity. He was tired of being afraid. It didn’t matter anymore, if Thanos hurt him, or killed him; a part of Tony had already died when Peter Parker had turned to ashes in his arms. No mortal pain could be worse than that shadow of grief and loss that lingered in Tony’s broken soul. 

“I hate you,” said Tony. “You spared my life, you gave me a choice, showed me my fiance when I asked. But I still hate you, Thanos. This doesn’t change that.”

“I know you do, Stark,” Thanos replied, his voice sounding angry and hurt, his eyes hooded. “I can’t convey how difficult a choice it was for me to make, and I don’t expect you to understand. That doesn’t mean I hate you, however.” 

Tony thought he could see the glitter of unshed tears in Thanos’s eyes, and told himself he didn’t care. 

“I don’t care,” Tony said, saying the thought aloud. “I don’t care if you don’t hate me, or if you care about me. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

Thanos jolted forward then, standing and crossing the few feet between them faster than Tony could process the movement. He grasped ahold of Tony’s tank top, pulled him flush against his massive torso, lifting him off the ground, and sealed their lips together before Tony could even think another coherent thought. Unlike the chaste kiss before, Thanos conveyed his anger and repressed desire in his kiss, his lips taking, demanding, coaxing Tony’s lips apart and stealing his breath. Tony moaned into the larger man’s mouth, grasping fistfuls of Thanos’s weird leather tank-top armor, grinding his clothed erection shamelessly into the alien’s chest. Tony jolted against Thanos’s body as he felt the titan’s other hand grasp his ass and squeeze. Tony moaned at the contact, at Thanos’s relentless grip on him, and Thanos took the opportunity to invade Tony’s mouth with his tongue. Thanos tasted like power, sweet and dangerous, and Tony moaned wantonly as he licked back. 

He had always liked aggression in his lovers, finding them a match for his own, and he enjoyed the fight for dominance that most of his male lovers liked to enact with him while they topped him. Hell, even Pepper topped him, sometimes in her power suits, other times with a strap-on, and he loved it all. But none of his previous encounters were like this, with a being of pure power, an alien, licking into his mouth, grasping him, claiming him, with no other choice but to submit. It was heady, addicting, and Tony was drunk on it, his head swimming with nothing but lust. 

Thanos finally broke the kiss, leaving them both panting, and Tony could see from his vantage point still in the titan’s grasp against his chest that Thanos’s cheeks were a dark ruddy purple. He could feel his own cheeks flushed, had no doubt they were dark red. The two men leaned against each other, panting, breathing each others’ breath. Once again, Tony had no idea what to say, having been shocked--and kissed--into complete silence. Thanos stared into Tony’s eyes, and Tony had no choice but to look back, transfixed. 

“You don’t get to tell me I don’t care about anyone, Stark,” Thanos said, pressing them even closer, until every inch of Tony’s front was touching the alien’s torso. Tony felt branded at the touch, hot all over.

“I know how I feel,” Thanos continued. “I accepted it, my desire for you, my admiration that steadily turned to wanting. It’s you who can’t accept what you feel. That you want  _ me _ to touch you, to make you feel alive, all the while screaming at me that you hate me, so that you don’t have to admit how much you want this.” 

Thanos placed Tony roughly back onto the ground, setting him on his feet, and Tony felt his shirt being tugged upwards. He raised his hands as Thanos stripped the shirt from his torso, feeling gooseflesh rise on his bare skin, his nipples hardening in the cold air. Thanos stared at him, panting, his lust barely restrained, and Tony reached up in a daze to delicately pry his arc reactor off his chest, placing it gently atop his discarded tank top on the ground, before turning back to Thanos. He felt exposed, raw, his lips still swollen from Thanos’s kisses, and his cock was painfully hard and aching in his pants. 

“I want you,” Tony said, his voice wavering at his own admission, like Thanos had finally broken him, and maybe he had, because all Tony wanted was  _ more _ : more touch, more pleasure, to fill all the broken spaces within himself, to replace all the death he had seen with life. Thanos simply nodded, smiling in satisfaction, and reached out his hand. Tony took it, placing his tiny hand in the other man’s huge purple palm, and felt himself tugged and led forward up the steps and into the center of the cabin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Incoming Smut!


	3. Reckoning

It was slightly warmer inside the cabin’s interior, but Tony was still shivering as he followed Thanos to a wooden bed pushed against one of the log walls not directly under the open ceiling. Tony took a look at the simple white mattress, covered with another thin blanket like that he had been given at his arrival on this planet. The bed was immensely sized for a human, but it looked almost too small for Thanos’s bulky frame. As Thanos released his hand, Tony took the opportunity to climb onto the bed, finding it surprisingly soft and comfortable. He supposed only the best would do for the conqueror of the Infinity Stones. He looked up at Thanos, who was peering at him from the edge of the bed with hungry eyes. Thanos smiled at Tony then, a gentle, slight smile at odds with the desire in his gaze. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, Stark,” Thanos said softly, in what Tony assumed was an attempt to calm his obvious nervousness. Tony laughed in response, shaking his head. 

“You already have,” Tony replied, his hand going automatically to the jagged scar on his side where Thanos had stabbed him. He didn’t bother going into details, figuring Thanos would parse his meaning. At the slight scowl on the titan’s face, Tony knew he had hit his mark. 

“I know,” Thanos said with a sigh. “I meant right now, in this moment, I will take care to take it slow, to make this pleasurable for you...For both of us.” 

Tony laughed again at the titan’s words. “What do you think I am, a virgin princess? This isn’t my first rodeo, Thanos. I don’t need you to be gentle with me, or reassure me. I’ve done it all. Though, I’ve never slept with an alien before, that _is_ different.”

“Well, I’m happy I’ll be your first then, in that sense,” Thanos replied with a smirk, before reaching up to a hidden clasp near his neck, and loosening his strange leather-and-metal battle tunic from his chest, dropping it carelessly to the ground before turning back to Tony, who stared at the half-naked titan in unabashed curiosity. Even without clothing or armor, Thanos’s torso practically rippled with muscle. Despite a deep scar in the center of his chest (a jagged, broken line of skin that nearly mirrored Tony’s own where the arc reactor used to be embedded), his pectorals and abs were in prime conditioning, his physique in top shape, as if chiseled from violet marble. 

Tony was surprised to see that Thanos did indeed have nipples, that were colored an even darker purple than the rest of him. Being unfamiliar with the expected physical form of the majority of titan males, or females, for that matter, Tony wasn’t sure if that was the norm, or a physical aberration for Thanos himself. Unbeknownst to his musings, Thanos flexed his arms a bit for Tony, showing off biceps that were larger than Tony’s head and most of the rest of his body. He was practically preening for Tony, enjoying the attention the human was giving him. 

“Like what you see, Stark?” Thanos rumbled, his voice as few octaves deeper with desire, and Tony nodded.

“Against my better judgment, I do,” Tony replied, reaching for the tie for his pants at his waist, but Thanos reached out a hand and shook his head.

“Not yet,” Thanos said. Tony rolled his eyes.

“Haven’t we done enough talking, by now?” Tony said in annoyance. “I’m right here, wanting you, in your bed, and you won’t let me even take my pants off.”

“Why won’t you let me be gentle with you, Stark? Even caring words seem to be too much for you.” 

“I don’t honestly think you have the ability to be gentle.”

“No,” Thanos said, shaking his head. “That’s not the reason.” 

Tony fought an urge to scream. The nerve of this alien! He huffed out a breath, shaking his head in anger. He knew by now that Thanos would just keep psychoanalyzing him, trying to get into his head, until he gave him a real answer. He hated that about him, about Thanos in particular and supervillains in general. 

“When--whenever I’ve let people be gentle with me, they’ve hurt me.” Tony wanted to cringe at how it sounded out loud, but it was the honest truth. He stared past Thanos at a spot in the wall, and his mind was filled with thoughts of Steve, memories of Steve’s lips and hands on him, contrasting sharply with images of a vibranium shield being raised over his head, aimed to kill.

“They didn’t deserve you, Stark,” Thanos said, and Tony looked up at him once more at the utter conviction in the titan’s voice. 

“They didn’t deserve to have you then, to love you then, and they don’t deserve you now.” He reached out and cupped Tony’s face in his gauntleted palm, kneeling down until they were face to face. 

“I’ve been inside your mind, and seen your noble heart.” Thanos dragged the fingers of his other hand down the center of Tony’s chest, tracing the scar left by the arc reactor, and Tony arched into the touch, feeling heat trailing in their wake. Ever since his corrective surgery to finally remove the arc reactor, the area directly surrounding his scar was hypersensitive, and it had become another erogenous zone, a fact that Pepper often took great advantage of. Now, with his heart racing under Thanos’s palm, he felt more exposed than he would have if he was naked. 

“They didn’t deserve you, Stark, your people, your planet,” Thanos said, staring at the human with longing in his gaze. “Your world is filled with disposable heroes, who the people will cheer for one moment and despise the next, who hate you at a moment’s mistake. They forget the lives you save, and only remember the ones who were lost. Tell me, is that a planet, a species, worthy of a man like you, who would give himself completely to the enemy?”

Tony sat up straight at those words.

“I’m an Avenger of Earth,” Tony said. “Regardless of what mistakes I’ve made, regardless of who remembers what good I’ve done, Earth is my _home_ . And yes, humanity is immeasurably flawed, but I _am_ human, that’s my _species_. I’d do anything to protect them both. I don’t care if they despise me.” The fact that he still cared that Steve had betrayed him and tried to kill him was perhaps beside the point, but Tony tried to gloss over that. Steve was a hero, too, was also an Avenger; this had been his fight, as much as Tony’s. 

Thanos nodded. “And do you care if your enemy cares about you?”

Tony sighed. “I wish you didn’t,” he said. “You tried to kill me a few weeks ago. We were fighting to the death.”

“We were,” Thanos said with a nod. “And _I_ won. In any battle, there are the victors, and the defeated. Those who stand alive at the end of a war are allowed to celebrate.”

“Is that what this is?” Tony asked, gesturing between them both. “A victory celebration?” 

“I prefer to think of it as a mutually pleasurable encounter,” Thanos rumbled, before pressing Tony down into the mattress, climbing over him. Tony jolted upwards as Thanos pressed them together, and Tony bit back a moan as the alien’s bare torso came into contact with his own. Thanos’s violet skin was hot, hotter than a human’s, and Tony cautiously raised his hands to stroke the broad chest in front of him. 

His skin was smooth, without any sort of hair, and Tony stroked beneath his pecs down to Thanos’s upper abs, marveling at how the titan’s muscles twitched under his fingers. Thanos rumbled appreciatively at the touch, so Tony continued touching him, this time reaching up to gently play with his nipples. Thanos jerked forward at the touch, hissing, and lunged down to capture Tony’s lips with his own in a greedy kiss. 

Tony gasped at the contact, and Thanos took the opportunity to invade his mouth with his tongue. _Ever the invader,_ he mused silently, noting that based on that earlier reaction, it seemed like the titan’s nipples were a definite erogenous zone as well. Filing the information away for later, he took the time to stroke Thanos’s massive tongue with his own, all the while caressing the larger man’s sides, chest, and biceps, enjoying the muscles rippling under his touch. Thanos moaned, a sound of open need that rumbled through him and into Tony, and it went straight to his groin, reawakening his interest, his cock hard and leaking against his thigh. He pressed gently against Thanos’s chest, who reluctantly broke the kiss, the two men taking the opportunity to gasp for air. 

“I want to--” Tony gestured towards his pants, and Thanos nodded, leaning back to allow the human room to move. As he watched Stark unfasten his pants, Thanos was simultaneously exhilarated at their closeness, and hesitant to rush things faster. Ever since he had traveled back to this planet to nurse his wounds from the battle on Earth, there had scarcely been a moment during the past few weeks when Thanos hadn’t thought about the human before him. 

Thanos had started out as a scientist, before spending the majority of his life as a warrior, a warlord and general; despite what others said about him, he cherished life itself. It was the imbalance of life, the lack of order in the universe, he despised, so he did what was within his power--and that of his armies--to correct that, for the good of all. 

The innate brilliance, and tenacity, of Tony Stark, both as a warrior and a fellow scientist, had earned him Thanos’s unflinching admiration, not just for meeting him as an equal on the battlefield, but for his intelligence, wit, and his bravery in destroying Thanos’s entire Chitauri fleet. Though he had had plenty of both suitors and bed partners, male and female, no one in the known universe had yet elicited the depth of emotional connection that Thanos felt for Tony Stark. It was an unknown, unquantifiable; the way he found himself yearning for Tony was more alien than the power of the Infinity Stones that now flowed through his flesh and soul. At first glance from beyond the planet of Earth, humans were a weak species, short-lived, shallow and without the vision for the future that other species in the universe possessed in full. However, Thanos had to privately admit that what humans lacked, they made up for with physical vigor, as well as a deep mental and spiritual vitality. 

Thanos found his thought process suddenly interrupted by Stark divesting himself of the last of his clothing, tossing it carelessly to the side. Stark leaned back on the mattress, finally fully bared to the titan’s hungry gaze. Thanos’s mouth went dry as he ogled the naked human laying underneath him. Tony had a lithe, muscular physique, coming from years of both fighting and wearing a heavy suit of armor. His chest was covered with a dusting of dark hair, his abs and pectoral muscles in prime condition. Thanos looked lower, beneath Tony’s narrow hips, where Tony’s thick cock lay fully hard against his belly. Thanos fought the urge to ravish the human right then and there, but he stopped himself; he had promised Stark that he would make this good for the both of them, and he was a man of his word. 

He looked up at Stark’s face, and had to fight the urge to kiss him senseless at the hooded look of lust Stark was giving him, his deep brown eyes glittering beneath the golden light cast from the nearby floating lanterns. 

“Can--can I touch you, Stark?” Thanos asked, his voice hoarse with desire. 

Stark bit his lip, arching up towards Thanos. He closed his eyes, turning his face to the side, and whispered something too faint for Thanos to hear.

“I didn’t hear you, Stark,” Thanos said. Tony sighed and his face flushed bright red, as if what he had to say was embarrassing. 

“I said...You can call me Tony.” 

Thanos blew out a breath at the human’s words. Stark had been infuriated at Thanos’s use of his first name back on the ship. 

“I...I thought that was off limits,” said Thanos cautiously. Tony snorted in response.

“So was me ever having sex with you, Thanos, but, here we both are,” he said, gesturing to their bodies nearly entwined on the huge bed. 

Thanos laughed softly. 

“Very well, you do have a point,” He replied. He leaned closer to Tony, until his mouth was right next to the human’s ear.

“Can I touch you, Tony Stark?” Thanos whispered, his words carrying an unspoken, obscene promise, and Tony jolted at the sound of his voice, his hips tilted upwards toward the titan, as if in offering. 

“Oh fuck, yes, please,” Tony whined, and that was all the encouragement Thanos needed to hear. 

The titan stroked his hands down Tony’s bare chest, savoring the way the human arched into his touch, the warmth of his skin setting Thanos’s mind aflame with lust. Thanos leaned down to run his tongue along one of Tony’s nipples, and Tony jolted from the contact, biting back a curse. Thanos moved his mouth to Tony’s other nipple, stroking the other with the hand still wearing the Infinity Gauntlet. He could feel Tony shaking from the dual stimulation, and looked up to see Tony’s eyes screwed tightly shut, his mouth set in a firm line. 

“No, Tony,” Thanos said. “Don’t hold back. Look at me, please.” 

Tony opened his eyes, his brown gaze meeting deepest blue, and Thanos leaned closer, until their faces were inches apart. 

“There’s no one else on this planet except us,” Thanos said, his voice a low whisper across Tony’s skin, making him shiver. “No one. I want this entire planet to be filled with your cries of pleasure, until it’s the only thing either of us hear.” 

Not giving the human a chance to vanish within himself, to become overwhelmed by dual physical sensation and emotion, Thanos captured Tony’s lips in a fierce kiss, and he felt the smaller man slowly relax against him. Without breaking their kiss, Thanos wrapped his hands around Tony, pulled him upwards until he was flush against the titan’s massive chest. 

For his part, Tony was reeling with the sensations the alien was awakening in him, even as he opened his mouth to accept a massive tongue exploring his own. He had never been so thoroughly dominated, and deep in the recesses of his mind, he was still resisting Thanos’s pull over him. Not even Steve, who had preferred to top him most of the time, had come close to the level of aggressive intensity of Thanos, who was clutching him even tighter, his massive hands encompassing the entire span of Tony’s naked body. 

When he closed his eyes, Tony could almost imagine someone else touching him, caressing him, kissing him, and he almost wished it were true, but as he began to indulge the thought he heard Thanos growl deep in his throat, like a wild animal. At the sound, Tony couldn’t help but tense up in his arms, and Thanos broke their kiss abruptly, placing Tony flat onto the bed in front of him with more gentleness than he had just kissed him with. 

Thanos stared at Tony, who fought the urge to flinch with how deeply the titan was staring at him, like he was attempting to peer through his mind.

“Tell me what you want,” Thanos said, more of an order than a request.

“You,” Tony replied immediately. 

“Then why did you flinch? Why are you holding back on me, Tony?” Thanos stroked his massive palm down the center of Tony’s chest, over his scar, and Tony bit back a moan even as he chased those questing fingers by arching upwards. He decided to just be honest; there was nothing left to lose, seeing as he had already lost it all. 

“If I give in to this--to _you_ , how is that not agreeing with what you did?” 

Thanos smiled gently. 

“You don’t have to agree, Tony,” Thanos replied. “I know you hate what I did, I expect it. You’re a hero, a warrior who fought me, and you failed. You watched your comrades fall as well. Don’t think I don’t understand, Tony. I’m hundreds of years old. I watched my planet die, and much more people after that. I have been the cause of plenty of death. This is just a moment, a respite. Don’t you think you’ve earned it?”

Tony searched Thanos’s gaze for signs of lying, but there were none, just that deep blue gaze set in his strange, wrinkled purple face. Tony thought it clever enough that Thanos didn’t mention what he himself deserved; victors never had to explain why they deserved the spoils. He was right though, he did deserve a respite. Tony had never been one to turn down sex from anyone; why should he start with a homicidal alien demigod with universal powers? 

“You’re right, I have earned it,” Tony said, finally accepting his choice, and smirked at the alien above him as he lay back down. 

“But all I have to measure up your skills so far, Tall, Dark and Purple, is a long make out session and some heavy petting. Why don’t you put those hundreds of years lived to good use?” 

Thanos arched an eyebrow, but the edges of his lips turned upward in a slight smile. This was a different side that Tony had not yet shown him thus far; the human was easing into his company, slowly but surely. Tony had been obedient and pliant enough under his touch, and he knew this human in particular enjoyed being feisty, so he was not offended, as used to obedience as he was. It was nice to be seen as an equal in bed, it was less effort on Thanos’s part, and thus it would be more sharing than anything, something he desired greatly in his newfound loneliness. Few beings could understand him now like Tony Stark could, and that particular human deserved to be rewarded for his understanding. 

So it was without preamble that Thanos stroked leisurely down Tony’s body, enjoying his hitched breathing and the warmth of his skin, before leaning down and taking the whole of the human’s half-hard cock into his mouth. 

“Ah--Thanos, _fuck!_ ” Tony swore, jolting upwards into the titan’s mouth. 

Tony felt himself rapidly swelling to full hardness inside the titan’s willing mouth, unable to choke back a long moan as Thanos stroked the entire span of his length with his massive tongue. After the horrors he’d experienced the past few weeks, he couldn’t even bring himself to feel bad about the sharp pleasure coiling through his whole body with every bob of the alien’s mouth engulfing him. Not even his hatred of Thanos was enough to get Tony to ask him to stop, and he no longer wished to deny his desire to give himself completely to this experience, however fucked up it was. 

He was a hero of Earth, and an Avenger, but he was also only a human man, after all of his titles were stripped away, and right now he wanted to fuck Thanos’s mouth, to touch him, to erase everything in his mind except pleasure. A semblance of common sense in his otherwise frayed mind state reminded him not to thrust up too sharply into the lips wrapped around his dick, careful even now not to anger the alien demigod before him. He couldn’t resist one instinctually sharp thrust upwards, however, as he felt one large finger graze his entrance.

“Ah, fuck, Thanos,” Tony swore, trying to relax around the massive fingertip slowly stroking his hole in time with the alien’s mouth. It felt as big as a normal human dick, which made him more than mildly anxious at his ability to possibly do anything to please Thanos with how big the alien’s own dick likely was. For the alien in question, however, Thanos rumbled in seeming contentment around Tony’s length, continuing to run his tongue up and down and pausing to lick his slit on the head of his dick. Tony moaned again, low and filthy, petting Thanos’s bald head in his lap as he felt himself get close to the edge, the dual onslaught of Thanos’s tongue and his finger leisurely stroking his hole rivaling any other stimulation Steve or any other of his male lovers had given him before. He had never considered Thanos would enjoy giving head, but the titan hadn’t let up from the moment he began.

“I’m...Thanos, I’m getting close,” Tony managed to whisper in between a moan and a gasp. 

Thanos’s lips slid off his cock with a wet pop, raising his eyes to Tony’s, who stared down at the titan’s smirking face between his legs. Blue eyes met hazel, and Thanos nodded.

“We have all the time in the universe, Tony,” Thanos rumbled, unhurried, not even winded even though it seemed to Tony he had barely paused for breath while sucking Tony off. 

“You can come in my mouth,” Thanos continued, saying the words with a hint of graciousness, even though Tony heard it like an order. Truly, he wanted to, wanted Thanos to swallow his seed, maybe choke on it like Tony had choked on his weeks-long grief, grief the titan had caused by his mad onslaught. The thought made his dick twitch, and Thanos broke his stare, returning his attentions to Tony, swallowing him down again like he had never stopped. 

Pleasure arced sharply along every nerve in his body, so strong it made him gasp and moan incoherently, his hips rising and slapping against Thanos’s mouth. Thanos rumbled a pleased moan around Tony’s dick, his free gauntlet-clad hand grasping Tony’s hip and clutching his ass. Tony felt that massive fingertip again caress his hole, only now it stroked him insistently, pressing gently to slide just inside him. It was too much, and Tony uttered a shrill scream as he toppled over the edge, thrusting again and again as he emptied his release into Thanos’s waiting mouth. 

Thanos continued to suck on him lightly as Tony shook and twitched through the aftershocks of his orgasm. As he writhed on the overlarge bed, an arm over his face as he caught his breath, dimly he realized he couldn’t remember when he had last climaxed, either on his own or with Pepper. The events of the past few weeks, the grief, fear and rage that ensued, had eclipsed all other urges, and everything prior to Thanos’s victory felt hollow and faded, like it existed in a different universe altogether. For all intents and purposes, the past essentially did, and Tony was part and parcel of a dim aftermath, finding comfort with the enemy. Still, the utter satisfaction coursing through him proved he could not bring himself to care.

Thanos released him, finally, his lips sliding wetly off of Tony’s softening cock, and rose slowly above him, licking his lips and smirking at him with a satisfied smile. 

“I assume you enjoyed that, Tony,” he said, and the human gave him a ragged sigh. 

“Yeah, I did,” Tony said, for once unable to say much more than a few words, but Thanos nodded all the same.

“Good,” he said, and the titan clambered off the bed, stripping off the pants and smallclothes that had become far too tight since he had begun to pleasure Tony. Thanos grunted as he freed his own cock from his clothing, the hard length of purple flesh slapping against his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to bury himself inside Tony’s tight hole, to fuck him senseless, make him think of nothing but _him_ , to hear the hero scream his name, to finally feel him truly submit. At the thought, Thanos forced himself to be patient; they had taken things this far, and he surely would get his chance, but he didn’t wish to frighten Tony with the depths of his lust, not now. 

Instead, he sat back down on a corner of the bed, stroking himself lazily with his non-gauntleted hand, content to stare at Tony’s naked form as he recovered from his orgasm. Tony finally roused himself, sitting up, and jolted, eyes wide, as he finally got a good look at Thanos’s own cock. 

“Whoa,” Tony whispered, and Thanos couldn’t help but chuckle lowly at Tony’s gobsmacked demeanor. Thanos was as big as Tony had expected him to be, perhaps a bit bigger; easily wider and thicker than his forearms, about ten or eleven inches long, purple like the rest of him, with a flared head similar to circumsized human males. Tony’s mouth watered, even as he mentally cringed at his inability to take a cock that big inside of him. He cleared his throat, finally looking up at Thanos, who was looking at Tony with unsuppressed desire in his blue eyes. 

“Um--do you want me to return the favor?” he asked. 

“I want a lot of things having to do with you,” Thanos replied, his voice a few octaves lower, still stroking himself slowly, and Tony shivered, goosebumps forming on his skin. Thanos noticed the human’s nervousness, and decided he would benefit from some direction. 

“You can start with touching me,” he said, and watched as Tony nodded, crawling over to him on the bed until he was bent over the titan’s thighs. Thanos took his hand away, and Tony reached out a hand to stroke up the titan’s length. Thanos hummed, thrusting upwards towards him, and Tony reached out his other hand to close halfway around the alien’s prodigious shaft. He couldn’t close his hands entirely around it, so he contented himself with awkwardly stroking into Thanos’s gentle thrusts. 

Thanos uttered a small groan, enjoying the heat of the human’s hands wrapped around his shaft, even if unable to do so completely. He could feel the heat of Tony’s breath as he labored to stroke the titan’s cock, and the thought of the human placing his lips upon him had Thanos arching his back slightly, thrusting faster into Tony’s grip. He sighed, reaching down a hand to stroke the top of Tony’s head lightly, running his fingers through the human’s mop of brown hair. Tony stopped his ministrations, looking up at Thanos, a wordless question in his hazel eyes, and Thanos had to remind himself to breathe as that gorgeous gaze was fixed upon him. 

“I’d like your mouth on me, now, Tony,” Thanos said, his voice hoarse with desire. Tony laughed nervously.

“I’m not sure if I even need to tell you this, Thanos,” he said, voice tight with hesitation. “But--you’re really big. As in, ‘not going to fit in my mouth at all’ big.” 

Thanos saw the smaller man’s shoulders rigid with tension, and gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He raised his other hand, still clad with the Infinity Gauntlet, the swirling Infinity Stones within slowly fading with time, but their power no less potent than before. He wiggled his fingers, watching Tony follow the movement with wide eyes.

“I still have this,” Thanos said. “All the power of the universe, in my grasp. The universe bends to _my_ will, Tony, whatever I wish it to be.” He lowered his hand, gently taking Tony’s chin in his other hand, raising the human’s face to look at him.

“I still want you, Stark,” Thanos said, his words tinged with authority. “Do you still want to be lovers, to continue this? I need to hear you say it, either yes or no.”

Tony licked his lips, staring at Thanos, trembling slightly in his grasp, but his eyes hardened with determination, as if he was about to enter a battle. He nodded.

“Yes, I want to do this,” Tony replied. 

Thanos couldn’t help but smirk in satisfaction at the human’s words. He nodded, taking his hand away from Tony’s chin. 

“Use your mouth on me, then,” The titan commanded. “I’ll take care of the rest.” 

Tony swallowed, hesitating only a moment before nodding. He leaned down towards Thanos’s massive purple cock, nuzzling his sac before licking a stripe up the hard length of flesh from base to tip. He swirled his tongue around the wide head, licking up a bead of precome, and Thanos uttered a harsh groan of pleasure. He thrust forward as gently as he could towards the human’s open mouth, raising the Infinity Gauntlet, the Reality Stone emitting a flash of crimson light as it obeyed its master’s will. Oblivious to this, Tony licked again at the head of Thanos’s shaft, opening his mouth wide to at least provide some limited suction, when suddenly he felt his lips able to close about the entire width of the titan’s dick. It was like Thanos’s meat was meant to be there, able to fit in defiance of cosmic order. 

Astounded at his seemingly miraculous ability to fit the biggest cock he had ever seen in his life into his mouth, Tony drew his lips back, the hot length of purple flesh leaving his mouth in an obscene pop. He looked upwards, and saw Thanos holding the Infinity Gauntlet aloft, the red Reality Stone shimmering.

“Oh, right,” Tony said, nodding, before lowering his head again and taking Thanos’s entire length back into his mouth, enjoying the titan’s ensuing loud groan of pleasure. 

Then it was just heat and musk, the taste of eager flesh in his mouth, the movement of his head and tongue, and this was something Tony understood innately, something he didn’t have to think about or agonize over. Sex had nothing to do with the fate of the universe, or his failure to save half of it, or his fall from grace that whatever giving himself over to this experience was. It was just pleasure, given, taken and shared, something he could lose himself in, so Tony did. In the back of his mind, he considered that perhaps this was what Thanos had planned all along, shattering his sanity slowly by isolating him on this garden planet in the backwaters of the universe somewhere. Offering him all the touch and care and interaction he could no longer have from friends and family he’d lost. _Your fault_ , Tony thought in latent anger and grief as he swallowed Thanos’s massive tool. _This is all your fault!_ He sucked Thanos harder at the thought, bobbed his head faster, hearing Thanos hiss as he overstimulated the titan in a parody of revenge. He sucked harder and harder, until Thanos ran a hand firmly over the top of his head.

“Stop,” Thanos said, breathing harshly. Tony finally took his mouth away, his chin dripping with spit and come, gasping. He felt his face flushed red, and tears were in the corners of his eyes. He was suddenly impatient, ready to be done with all of it, ready for Thanos to claim him, to submit. He no longer wanted to stare at his enemy, feeling the burning disconnect in his mind and heart at being the lover of a villain. Tony was tired, every nerve frayed. He wiped halfheartedly at his damp chin. 

“C’mon, then,” he said, and motioned to the Reality Stone. “Make me hard again. I know you can do it.”

Thanos stared at him impassively with his cool grey eyes, sizing him up. 

“Stark--”

“No, Thanos,” Tony said. He turned his back to the alien, knelt on his knees with his legs spread, offering himself with his back bowed, placing his forehead into the sheets.

“This is what you want, right?” he said softly, his voice muffled in the mattress, but he knew Thanos could hear him. 

“I want you to face me,” Thanos said, his voice thin with desire and a current of anger at Tony’s refusal to listen, to look at him. Tony couldn’t help laughing a little into his forearms.

“Why?” he asked, not bothering to hide his bitterness. “You get to fuck me either way. Get to take me, make me your Earth bitch, or whatever you think this is. You won, we lost, it doesn’t matter, Thanos, what does it _matter?_ ”

“Because I couldn’t _kill_ you!” Thanos shouted, and Tony jolted as Thanos placed a massive palm over his backside, gripping his ass hard enough that he would surely have a bruise later. “Because I couldn’t twist the knife deeper into your side,” Thanos snarled, pulling Tony backwards until the titan’s cock was pressed into the seam of his ass. Tony shivered as he felt Thanos’s massive length stroke against his entrance. Thanos leaned over Tony, nipping at the back of his neck, and Tony gasped and choked back a moan.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing you cry again,” Thanos continued in a graveled voice. “I, who have killed thousands, conquered whole civilizations, who wields the infinite power of the universe! And yet, I _cannot_ slay you, Stark. Tony. Whatever I choose to call you, you’re the only one out of billions that makes me willingly stay my hand. It’s something in your eyes, and I want to see your face when I make you _mine_.” 

The titan stroked his hand down Tony’s back, making him shiver, and then Tony was being flipped onto his back, his breath leaving his lungs in a rush. He had no time to even think before Thanos was capturing his lips in a greedy kiss, a massive alien tongue filling his mouth as those same hands roamed his body. Tony moaned, feeling faint from lack of oxygen, and Thanos withdrew his tongue, licking at the human’s lips before nipping them lightly as Tony gasped for air. Thanos rose over him, a giant, naked violet-hued philosopher king lording over his subject, and Tony felt a frisson of fear run up his spine. There was nowhere to run, no way out of the path forward, and he had _chosen_ this, had chosen to be the offering to this mad god incarnate. Thanos narrowed his eyes, having seen Tony shiver.

“You don’t trust me,” he said, moving his hands away from Tony’s body. 

“No,” said Tony. “Not at all.”

“But you want me, still,” Thanos replied. The titan stroked his own cock lightly, still completely hard. 

“I do,” said Tony. “I don’t know why, anymore, but I do.”

Thanos nodded and raised the Infinity Gauntlet. 

“Say it, Tony,” said Thanos. “Say my name when you say the words.”

The command went straight to Tony’s cock, sending a coil of pleasure spiraling low in his abdomen, making him stir to half-hardness despite his misgivings.

“I want you, Thanos,” said Tony, little more than a whisper, but Thanos heard them all the same, and growled like a monster about to seize his prey. The titan fisted his enormous cock, raising the Infinity Gauntlet higher in his other hand, and a spiral of crimson light rushed outward from the Reality Stone, bathing them both in a scarlet glow. Tony jolted back against the mattress as he was suddenly fully, achingly hard, his cock slapping against his stomach. He groaned as he felt his hole instantly relax, as if Thanos had spent an hour prepping him with his huge alien fingers and tongue, his ass somehow lubricated of its own accord. He felt himself dripping onto the sheets underneath, and was so stunned at the feeling that he couldn’t even bring himself to feel ashamed. 

Then Thanos was grasping his thighs, pulling him up against the titan’s cock, and both men hissed at the feeling. Tony spread his legs wider, arching his back against the bed, and Thanos stroked the head of his length lightly against Tony’s hole, making the human tremble. Thanos pushed forward, entering him gently despite his massive size, and instead of the pain Tony expected, there was nothing but sheer pleasure coursing through him, emanating from where he and Thanos were now joined. Thanos gasped as he leaned over the smaller human, his face flushed a deeper shade of purple, his bald head covered in a thin sheen of sweat as he fought for control over his body. It had been so long since he had taken a lover, and now that he was inside the human he had been longing for, slowly claiming his body, Thanos fought to stave off an early orgasm. He gritted his teeth as he sank deeper into Tony, channeling his will into the Reality Stone yet again, and felt the edge taper off inside of him, so that he could relax. He supposed mastering the Infinity Stones did have its additional perks beyond the obvious. 

“How...are you not..destroying me?” Tony managed to grunt out in between gasps, as his body clenched around the alien cock invading him. 

“The Stones don’t care about our size,” said Thanos with a smile, pressing a gentle kiss to Tony’s sternum as he rocked his hips against the smaller human. “If it be my will, you shall not be harmed, and so it is.” 

Tony moaned his name in reply, biting his lip as heat and pressure lit up every nerve in his body. It felt better than he had expected. He arched into Thanos as the alien ran his large palm up his ribs, dextrous purple fingers spread across his pecs, pinching his nipples, and Tony cried out a wordless sound of pleasure. 

He shivered as the cool metal of the Infinity Gauntlet pressed gently into his ribs and across his sternum, looking up as Thanos also ran his gauntleted hand over his skin, the Infinity Stones set in its surface glowing, casting both of their bodies in otherworldly hues. A strange vibration seemed to enter him, a quiet buzzing like static resonating in his veins, and Tony felt the brush of something against the surface of his mind. He recognized it at once as the Mind Stone, having felt that same static resonance as when he had been borne along its telepathic currents to Pepper’s mind on Earth. Now that same power was encompassing him, and Tony didn’t need to see the telltale golden glow of the Stone to know it was Thanos’s own mind pressing against his, seeking entry into his very consciousness. Tony recognized the fierceness, the roiling need, of the titan’s mind, and couldn’t help but be amused. 

“You really wanna...conquer me completely, don’t you,” Tony gasped out, managing a laugh before shuddering as Thanos rocked into him with a particularly hard thrust.

“Yes,” said Thanos, not bothering to deny it. He ran his lips over Tony’s collarbone. 

“I, of all beings, deserve _all_ of you, Tony Stark,” he said, nipping at his neck, his ears, running massive hands through Tony’s close-cropped brown hair. 

“I know the burden of being both hero and villain,” said the titan. “And I know your true worth. You belong in the stars, in service to a greater vision, where you can help the greatest amount of people. You belong with _me!_ ”

The titan pressed his lips against Tony’s with a tenderness that did nothing to hide his need, his mind silently begging for entry. Under the alien’s lips and tongue Tony yielded, felt his mental walls crumble. Then Thanos was there, inside his mind, pressing against the walls of Tony’s very being as deeply as their flesh. Tony’s senses were heightened, his blood humming, pleasure racing across every inch of his body, and he could _feel_ Thanos’s emotions as if they were his own. Delight, satisfaction, and drowsy contentment rushed through him. Through _them._

Disoriented, Tony ran his hands against the titan’s massive chest pressed against him, letting out a startled gasp at the echo of his fingers against his own chest. He could feel the haze of ecstasy that was his body clenching around Thanos’s cock inside of him, the power of the Infinity Stones pulsing through the titan’s veins like the wine of eternity. The rush of shared sensation blinded him, pulled him down into an ocean of alien lust, so intense he feared blacking out. 

Tony looked up at Thanos, trembling under that blue gaze, under his eyes as bright as sapphires, at the desire and admiration he felt from the titan, admiration for _him_ , the human who had stood against him as an equal. The wonder and awe echoing into him through their nascent telepathic bond drove him further towards his inevitable release. Even now, Tony wanted to fight it, wanted to resist the pleasure coursing through him. Thanos noticed and thrust into him harder, nudging the spot inside Tony that dragged ragged moans from his hoarse throat. 

“It’s never going to be enough, is it,” Tony gasped, not looking away from the titan’s ice-blue gaze.

“No,” Thanos replied breathlessly, never ceasing his thrusts into the human beneath him. “But here with you, being inside you, it feels like it could be.” 

It was as close to a declaration of love that Thanos dared, unable to convey his feelings in any other fashion beyond rocking his hips into Tony’s, but Tony heard it all the same, felt the emotion behind Thanos’s words. He closed his eyes, unwilling to acknowledge it, and instead arched upwards into Thanos’s powerful body, feeling his release begin to build again as pleasure coiled up his spine, and his cock twitched, leaking, against his stomach. 

“I’m getting close,” he said, more of a moan than anything. Tony reached down to stroke himself, trembling as he reached towards the edge. 

“ _Yes,_ Tony,” said Thanos, staring hungrily at his lover, pleased that the human had finally given himself over at last. “Come for me!” 

  
  


With his eyes closed, overwhelmed with sensation, Tony missed Thanos’s wicked grin as the titan clenched his gauntleted fist, the Time Stone flaring to life and enveloping the human underneath him in a verdant glow. Tony stroked his own cock furiously, gasping, before uttering a harsh loud groan as his orgasm crashed through him. Through their telepathic bond via the Mind Stone, the shared pleasure Thanos felt of Tony’s own body clenching around him followed soon after, wrenching another orgasm from Tony, his balls aching with the force of his release that splattered against his chest and stomach. 

Breathing harshly, Tony fell back against the bed, expecting to catch his breath, when he suddenly was orgasming again, somehow wrenched back to the precipice of release. Once again, he was stroking his cock, tumbling over the edge, and a second orgasm from Thanos’s mind echoed inside his, ripping out another cry of ecstasy from him. Tony fell back onto the bed, winded and completely shocked. He opened his mouth to demand to know what was happening, but then he was there, again, falling over the edge, his cock in his hand, groaning in repeated ecstasy, the ensuing second orgasm ripping every coherent thought from his mind as his body emptied its release. At the fourth and fifth time he fell back against the bed, only to find himself orgasming once again, Tony realized Thanos had done something to him, enveloped him in a looped moment in time using the Time Stone. That was about the only conclusion his shattered mind was able to reach before Tony was lost to the moment of eternal pleasure, trapped in endless ecstasy with no way to escape. He moaned, he begged Thanos to release him, he screamed as his consciousness narrowed only to tumbling off an endless edge with Thanos’s massive cock inside of him. 

It was the sweetest of hells, the most ecstatic of agonies. An apocalyptic brilliance, every nerve aflame in bliss, and Tony was lost to this mad crush of infinity physically inflicted upon him. He felt his mind and body fray, becoming tattered and loose at the seams, until, after countless iterations of the same looped moment in time, the same desire cresting upon the same great height, his mind broke.

“I’m yours,” Tony moaned raggedly in surrender. “Thanos, _I’m yours_!” 

Then he was falling against the bed, expecting to be pulled once more to the brink, when he saw a green light burst about him in a shower of emerald sparks, and he was able to gasp for air, the moment finally broken. It may have only been a few minutes, but to Tony it may as well have been an eternity unto itself. He trembled and wept, and Thanos wiped the tears from his face with a huge palm. The titan was still moving inside Tony, the pace of his hips becoming erratic, until Thanos, too, groaned into the side of the human’s neck, and Tony felt the warmth of his release fill him. He could do little except shudder, still shaking from his own aftermath. The men rested against each other briefly, Thanos barely holding himself up over Tony to avoid crushing him, and then the titan pulled out of him slowly, both men wincing from the force of their previous exertions. 

Thanos wrapped violet arms around Tony, pulling him against his broad chest, and Tony breathed in his musky scent, at once calming and invigorating. He listened to Thanos’s rumble of satisfied contentment, the beat of his massive heart lulling Tony to a light doze. Thanos stroked a palm down the human’s back, and Tony allowed himself to drift lightly.

“You meant it,” the titan whispered softly. “You meant what you said, before. When you said you were mine.”

Tony nodded against Thanos’s chest.

“I did,” he replied, just as softly. 

“You’ll stay with me,” Thanos said, kissing his brow. “Together, Tony, you and I will forge a new path for the universe, one of wholeness and equilibrium. I knew you would join me, I knew you would become my own!”

Tony didn’t need to see the titan’s face to know he was smiling. He let the alien hold him tighter, let Thanos lift his chin and kiss him gently on the lips, and Tony didn’t resist, allowing his limbs and lips to be pliant against the larger man’s. Deep within his mind, however, which was now blessedly free of Thanos’s presence, the Mind Stone once again quiet in the Infinity Gauntlet, the beginnings of his resistance stirred once again. 

Although he could not escape the titan’s grasp, nor his planet, Tony knew Steve and the rest of the Avengers would not remain idle on Earth. With Thanos sufficiently distracted, the others could make headway with their own efforts to right the calamity Thanos had wrought upon the universe. It was a fool’s hope, but that had been enough before, and it was all Tony had. He was willing to take that bet. He would do whatever it took to defeat Thanos, even if that required him to live a mockery of love until that was accomplished. There were surely far worse things.

At that thought, Tony smiled, his face still obscured against Thanos’s chest. He knew he would always be a hero, that he would always be Iron Man. 

And after all, iron sinews could always be rebuilt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so here we are, at the end of this particular journey, and thanks for joining me! This story kernel grew from rewatching Tony and Thanos's fight scene in Infinity War several dozen times, in preparation for Endgame, and went its own way. I'm so happy to have completed this story during this calendar year, having started in January and taken exactly 11 months to finish in between Big Real Life Stuff. This is my first completed novella, and I'm happy with how it turned out. Depending on interest, I might write a sequel with these two. 
> 
> If you liked it, please feel free to leave kudos or a comment, feedback is love!

**Author's Note:**

> I appreciate feedback, drop me a comment if so inclined. Thanks for reading!


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